Partick Thistle’s Academy Director Gerry Britton has hailed the impact of the Thistle Weir Youth Academy on the club.

The former Jags star oversees the development of hundreds of kids that have been able to benefit from expert guidance since its formation in 2013.

The academy strives not only to ultimately provide players for the Thistle first-team, but also to increase community engagement with the club.

With the funding provided by Chris and Colin Weir, the youth system at Firhill is now unrecognisable from before.

Britton said: “Prior to the funding, Club Academy Scotland gave us a two-star rating - we were basically a glorified boy’s club.

“We had two teams, we were then able to increase it to four teams, and now we have six elite academy squads with two development squads below them, a grassroots set-up running in tandem and we’ve started up girls and adults participation sessions, so it’s snowballed in terms of the people we’ve got engaged with the club.

“In terms of the elite academy, what we’re able to provide to the players is night and day.

“We had hand-me-downs from the under-20s and the first-team, that’s what we used. We were on public facilities where we had kids going across the pitches on bikes and throwing golf balls at us.

“Now, the majority of our sessions are over at the Lochinch facility which is out of this world.

“The older teams can train at Scotstoun Stadium in the strength and conditioning suite, we’ve got great medical facilities with fully-qualified physios and a sports science department. Everything is just on a different level.

“In the past couple of years we’ve upped the standards of everything we do, so what we hope will happen is that we attract players who previously at the age of 10 or 12 might have thought they would go to the likes of St Mirren or Queens Park.

“The kids that go to Celtic or Rangers will probably always go to Celtic or Rangers, but the players that have got a choice to make might see what we’re trying to put in place and hopefully we’ll become a more attractive proposition for good players to come and develop.”

Whilst the difference in the youth set-up at Thistle since the foundation of the academy has been massive, it is in even starker contrast to what Britton experienced in his early career at Celtic.

He said: “When I was at Celtic we trained four mornings a week, we never trained in the afternoons. We did sprints, and we played games. That was it. There was no coaching, I was never coached in five years as a player at Celtic.

“Was it a bad thing? I don’t know, but what we’re trying to do is give the kids every opportunity to progress and we think that we’re giving them scenarios to become better footballers.

“We talk a lot about why there has been a change in the standard of player that Scotland produces. You don’t see kids out playing in the street now or in the park the way we used to for 10 hours a day.

“We’re trying to give them a developmental mind-set where they want to go and put in the hours, because that’s the only way that they will progress.

“We’ve all seen good technical players that just lack that intrinsic attitude and desire to want to get even better. You then look at Cristiano Ronaldo, who was so focussed on becoming the best player in the world and was prepared to put in the hours to achieve it.

“That’s the kind of mind-set we’re trying to develop in our players. They might not have the same natural ability as Ronaldo, but there’s nothing to stop them having the same attitude and the same desire to go and progress and make themselves better.”